Crossing the border with Blue Jays beat reporter Jordan Bastian.

Glaus exits game again

On Thursday, Jays slugger Troy Glaus was pulled from the game in the third inning, when John McDonald took over at third base. Toronto said that Glaus left the game for precautionary reasons related to soreness in his left heel and he was listed as day-to-day.

It’s the second time in a week that Glaus has left a game with the same issue. He also left Saturday’s contest against Tampa Bay with pain in his left heel. Toronto manager John Gibbons said Monday that Glaus was playing with a bone spur in his left foot — something the infielder dealt with off and on last year as well.

It’s not clear how exactly Toronto is going to deal with the situation, but it doesn’t seem good to have Glaus coming and going in games this often this early. One problem is the Jays don’t have a legit backup for third base.

Then again, playing through pain is nothing new for the 6-foot-5 Glaus. He played through leg problems last year and led the Jays with 38 homers. In ’05, he had a strained tendon behind his left knee and still appeared in around 150 games. Still, we’ll see how the current issue continues to play out.

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5 Comments

It would be nice if we had the money to keep Eric Hinske for situations like this, but now we have to fill in for Troy with Smith or McDonald. I think in Reed Johnson’s absence, I would have Hill batting leadoff, with Overbay/Rios in the 2/5 holes, depending.
With all respect to Matt Stairs, it looks as if he’s a bit slow for patrolling the outfield, and there is a good case for promoting Adam Lind and just making sure he gets enough playing time and at bats to develop well.

Hill, Johnson, and Rios should be at the top of the order every game. Depending on who is hitting the ball well at the time.
I really dont understand the logic of having Overbay bat second when we have players who can hit the ball just as well, with better speed. You need guys who can score from first on a solid double, and the Jays have had trouble doing that already.

Hopefully the injury to Glaus isnt serious, its going to be tough to replace his numbers with a Smith/McDonald platoon

Overbay is at the top of the order because of his .372 OBP last year. Also, it separates the left-side bats. The only other way to do that would be to hit Zaun 9th, and during spring training it looked like that would be silly. Of course, right now Hill/Clayton would be a good 1/2, considering that Clayton’s hitting .500 vs. righties. Ah, the wonders of small sample size.

It’s true that Rios has more speed then Overbay, and he was considered for the #2 slot. He also can’t use his speed to great advantage if Glaus or Thomas are on base ahead of him. The reason Overbay is batting second is because, with Johnson on first, and the first baseman holding him on, there is a huge hole on the right side for a left hand bat to pull the ball through. I think over the season we will see Rios and Overbay switch positions, depending on who is pitching.

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